


I Heard It Moved You

by loveundone



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, and other charas but only mentions, shit goes down in war sometimes and hilda goes down with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22358026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveundone/pseuds/loveundone
Summary: Claude concludes: something about Hilda crying—really crying—deeply unsettles him.
Relationships: Hilda Valentine Goneril/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 72





	I Heard It Moved You

There's an intimacy to digging her axe in the dip where the shoulder meets the neck of an old friend. And digging, digging again. Like something good is ought to come out, crack open. The spillage splattering everywhere is a testament to her prowess, but this particular shade of red has never been her color. Spitting the droplets from her mouth and leaning on Freikugel when the body stops convulsing, the weight of her own breathing wears her down.

If there was ever a time she should have found herself sobbing, Hilda supposes the battle at Gronder Field had given her plenty of reasons to.

She made sure to exchange words with the old friends she encountered so far. To comment on Mercedes' new haircut and Caspar's growth, offer Anette and Ferdinand a hesitant smile. So on. Each struck or got struck, whether by her or another Deer, an Eagle or Lion. Or plainly retreated, which is worse, because it means facing them again later on.

 _Maybe if they'd joined our House, they would've saved me the trouble_ , she thinks in a purposeful oversimplification, a part of herself consciously in denial that… this is happening. But then again, in the grand scheme of things, some people have it worse than her.

And that has never been more clear than with Dimitri.

Kneeling once retreat orders are given from the Kingdom and Empire, the dried grass burns in an even intensity, still. Her chest rises and falls, and there's suddenly more commotion than she'd expect at the battle's end— an uproar of sorts that traces back to a single man. _Dimitri?_ Hilda mouths to herself, soundless, as if trying to believe it, and sinks her axe on the dirt for support.

Crazed. Reduced to something hysterical, seeking dismemberment by his own hand. Like his life, what's left of it, depends on it. In this side of the field, the smoke is thick. It engulfs him into something even more unfamiliar, and it works to no one's advantage; he collapses from the strain and everything in between. Himself and the self destruction, mostly, and the imperial men that she descried far too late.

Hilda sees it in perfect view: Dimitri is brought to his knees, prepared for slaughter. It's like a ritual. Looks like prayer. So much for a Holy Kingdom. Someone of the empire would make a painting of this someday. A picture of something undignified, symbolizing glory.

Her stomach can hardly take the sight of his body being pierced, relentlessly.

Something moves within her. For survival's sake, the instinctive part of her calls it fear— fear of being next. So she stands, sore in places she anticipated (but never this badly), and finds her own army at the outskirts of the smoke. Breathing… is still not easy. But she doesn't stop walking, eyes set on Claude and the professor. Lysithea's call to heal her goes unheard.

Dimitri's last cry rings on her ears to the point her body adopts it as another source of pain. She thinks _she's_ crying, but her eyes stung from the smoke and her face has been wet with blood for some time now, it's hard to tell.

Freikugel falls off her grip, pulsing.

"I saw him."

* * *

The front Hilda tries to put up is shaky at best. Spacing out is nothing foreign to her, but this is something akin to a trance, Claude notices when Marianne, owner of Hilda's utmost attention when speaking, seems to talk onto deaf ears. Hilda apologizes several times, tells her how tired she still is from that battle, and encourages to repeat herself. Says she's got her full attention this time.

That night, he comes back from the library well past midnight. Trained with steps to be noiseless, he halts when he makes out the shape of her body far down the hallway, despite the scarce, dimming candlelights above.

Realizing she's outside Dimitri's old room, sitting on the window frame in front of it, there's no doubt on his mind: this is something beyond herself.

"Trouble sleeping?" He calls out, startling her more than she already looks.

Hilda doesn't say anything. Not at first. Instead, she takes a deep breath.

"What you saw out there… it would've shaken anyone." And in a way, he feels responsible for it. Hilda has a skewed sense of empathy, but it works just as well as any other. Or more, if this serves as proof to it.

"They killed him like an animal, Claude," she hugs herself to create a divide between her and the chill, though that's not really why she's faintly trembling. _Where in the world did Dedue end up,_ she wonders. "I wasn't even his _friend_. And all I could think... is that there was nothing I could do to stop it." He can tell by the shadows deepening her features that she's conflicted by her own feelings. Or rather, their intensity.

Claude steps closer, brings her body away from the cold of the frame and onto his arms, hands on the back of her head to press her on his chest. She needs a heartbeat to listen to. "Not just you, Hilda. Anyone." Himself, above all. "All the more reason to see this war through the end, if you ask me."

She's quiet, and he takes it as permission to continue. "The dead cling to us without regard of our lives, much like they did to Dimitri. He's clinging to you too," Claude hears her swallow, and breathe deeply. "But it's up to you to break free of that weight."

His hand lifts her chin.

Gloveless, he runs the thumb along her jaw, and it dampens his finger pad with a tear. No, several of them.

Hilda Valentine has a repertoire of tears for each and all occasions. He's managed to pick them apart and classify them accordingly; if her eyes redden, if her face reddens, if her nose goes runny or her sniffs are dry. And he made it a point to warn her he can spot the fake ones. More often than not, she earns things for those; pity accompanied by a helpful hand. Claude never thought he'd see the day she'd give in to her sensitivity and sob this way, quietly. Cry onto her open palms.

The sight overwhelms him.

Her tears aren't a means to an end, but the aftermath.

* * *

It turns out this red doesn't sit well with her shade of pink either, Hilda concludes as the mock battle between them and the Alliance troops plays out. It feels like a betrayal to herself, knowing she was the person to suggest the disguises. Or maybe it's an attempt to move on. Overcome something. Climbing atop Lorenz' horse as they're ordered to usher inside the fort, she doesn't feel entirely accomplished despite the plan _working_.

Lorenz glances her way when she gets off the horse, cover now blown, and notices the staggering of her feet, axe twirling on her hand.

"May the goddess be in your favor, Hilda." He's worried. Deeply so.

Hilda, in spite of the disgust settling deep into her belly, nods and gets to work. No complaint to be heard.

Killing in the armor of an Imperial soldier reignites memories she thought she put past her, and she avoids blonde soldiers if she can.

Otherwise, she doesn't look at them in the eye during and after the relentless hacking.

* * *

In the dreams of abruptly-ended naps, Hilda relives the threatening gust of wind that speared through her, the shock-waves that shook the earth and the blinding light that came with the first javelin of light impacting.

Some people revere the unknown, much like the goddess. Others fear it. Hilda knows which end she stands on, and understands she's not alone; even Claude seemed thoroughly shaken by it. And who else to detest being kept in the dark more than him. By the end of their infiltration of Enbarr, canals red and stagnant, she realizes there's people who aren't just kept in the dark.

They slither in it.

And just under her family's nose, too, according to Hubert's—she shivers at the image of him—letter.

If she was a little scared before fighting Edelgard at the capital, Shambhala as a mere notion earned her fear. It didn't help Rhea fed them crucial information about the size of bird seeds, or that Holst believed her a worthy representative when Hilda made herself ill by overthinking just _how_ these people could go unnoticed all this time. Manuela could testify that from the amount of times she dismissed Hilda from the infirmary, and asked Marianne to take her for a cup of herbal tea instead.

She needed someone to talk to. Marianne listened, and often brought up the goddess. Asked, in a sighed prayer, for her protection. They _could_ use some of it, Hilda thought when the javelin was summoned to fall at Shambhala. Many nightmares involve this very moment, and the catharsis of death takes the form of waking up.

There's different kinds of dread. Evidently, Hilda learns this by re-experiencing in dreams the earth's hollow tremors several times, and by getting the news that Holst is gravely injured.

She excuses herself from the Cardinal's room and asks the soldiers to escort her to… wherever Claude is.

* * *

The audience chamber is all but empty. Leonie suggested she paid a visit, but now that she's here, Hilda avoids the people there more than actively seeking to spill her mind before the tears can. She only trusts these nameless people on the battlefield (and even then, she wouldn't die for them). Other than that, she doesn't see why they should know the first thing about her dread.

Hilda chooses the library as the most appropriate place to not be bothered, then. The parchment she lays on the table is crumpled from previously holding it too tight, and there's wax to her side, baby pink. She'll melt it with the candle and seal it once she finishes the letter to Holst.

She's waiting for her hand to stop shaking so she can lift her quill. Any moment now.

It doesn't surprise her that, eventually, it's Claude who walks in; it's that he has the _time_. He spent more time talking to Rhea after she left, and even more time at their old classroom, perhaps making use of the chalkboard. Or maybe to stand near the fireplace. Warmth always seem to strike the best ideas in him.

In any case, he's here now, and a careful, "Hey there, how are you holding up?" is enough to state his presence, sitting next to her.

"Better than my brother," She says in an attempt at humor, but her voice lacks something. "I just still can't believe it. Next to you, he's the strongest person I know, and he… he was powerless." She peels off her eyes from the unwritten letter to finally look at Claude. They’re red, progressively getting glossier. "He barely escaped with his life."

_What does that mean for us?_

A blink is enough to push a first tear to trail down. He smears it before it can travel further than her cheek.

"If anything is certain, it's that the Goneril siblings are a hell of a duo to take out. I know I've seen it firsthand," he makes of his voice a gentle, comforting thing. Lighthearted enough. "He's alive and recovering, isn't he? There's no use for these," and he runs his thumb along her eye bags. "Besides, your brother wouldn't appreciate a tear-stained letter."

Her chuckle is soft, leaning her forehead on his shoulder, "I think they give it a flare." And then she's quiet.

Claude feels inadequate for a moment.

In the time he's known her, he's only ever seen her cry twice. _Really_ cry, that is. And two times is enough to conclude he would've rather kept the image of her tears when he told her the camel story as the closest thing he'd ever see of real tears from her. Not... these. She's as much of a pillar to him as he is to her. Up until these last few months, Hilda had truthfully cried as many times as he did; not once, not really. It doesn't pertain to someone who claims to be so delicate; she's more removed than she realizes. And, in the end, he supposes the things that get to her might not be so different in magnitude from the ones that should get to him. Only Hilda _can_ take the liberty to express them.

Claude can't afford that. Not as long as he's their leader. Not when his younger days made of grief or fear something to channel detached analysis into.

And yet, he knows there's dignity to it. Crying, aside from the pain that roots it, is the purest expression of the heart that's survived.

"I can leave if you're in a hurry to finish your letter," He offers, but makes no move. Instead, he runs his hands along her hair, the way he knows she likes it.

"I'm... not sure I want to be alone right now."

He frowns, immediately. "That implies there's a moment your golden deer aren't with you, and _I_ take great offense on that," Claude smiles into her hair before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Hilda lifts it, face flushed from the aftermath of tearing up and, now, bashfulness.

"Okay, let me rephrase then." Her usual sway in place is a mechanical reaction. Muscle memory. "I'm not sure I want anyone other than you beside me right now." As it leaves her mouth, she realizes how short _right now_ falls.

**Author's Note:**

> claudehilda's supports left me with the thought of hilda Rarely ever crying real tears......effervescent.


End file.
